


Kicking Shadows on the Street

by JustAPassingGlance



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-23
Updated: 2016-04-23
Packaged: 2018-06-03 23:55:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 944
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6632215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAPassingGlance/pseuds/JustAPassingGlance
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>He could still pinpoint them. Key moments. There were millions, thousands, billions of moments in a life. But only a few key moments. Those moments. The ones he could be whittled down to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Kicking Shadows on the Street

**Author's Note:**

> writing sprint. (1 hour writing, 15 minutes to edit)  
> written for seblaineaffairs' Spring Fling. 
> 
> warning: addiction

He could still pinpoint them. Key moments. There were millions, thousands, billions of moments in a life. But only a few key moments. _Those_ moments. The ones he could be whittled down to. Turning points, some of them. Or not. Because he hadn’t turned, he had kept going. Plowed forward with his characteristic reckless and thoughtless abandon.

Those key moments. Little moments, big moments. Moments that had hadn’t realized were moments until long after they had passed him by.

Given the trajectory of his life, maybe it had always been inevitable that those moments would be the only things he had left.  

-

Collapsed on a couch or a bed. Or maybe it was just a pile of discarded clothes? Or a soft patch of grass in someone’s back yard. Blaine staring down at him, his face tight in anger and eyes bright with fear and concern.

“It’s not even a problem. I promise.”

Blaine scowled. “I don’t believe you.”

“I’m fine. It’s not like I can’t stop.”

“Then do it. Stop. You’re scaring me.”

“You stop. You’re worrying about nothing. So just stop and let me have my fun.”

-

Blaine, with his brows furrowed, as he stared down at piles of paper with a pen in one hand. He was concerned, but not terribly. Bills, probably. Or writing thank you cards after a celebration.

Sebastian sat across from him, nodding and agreeing. Nothing much to add but a show of spousal support.

It started as just a niggling, worming thought in the back of his mind. _What if you… Don’t you want to… Wouldn’t this be better if… Just a little bit, just enough to get you there._

Easy enough to ignore.

But the worm didn’t like being ignored so it moved down to his chest. Set up and took root there. And then it stopped being a worm and just became a… coldness. A coldness that grew, little by little with every breath. Icy tendrils of yearning that raced through him as the air outside of him grew heavier and heavier over his nose and mouth. Tendrils that became a vice grip over his heart and lungs.

And the niggling was back. But this time it was inside of him. Thousands of things niggling then scrabbling through his icy bloodstream. He could feel it crawling, scratching under his skin. Unified in their goal.

They wanted, wanted, _wanted_. All they did was want.

All he did was want.

“I’ll be right back.” Sebastian stood up abruptly, not quite pushing his chair back enough. He tripped on one of the legs.

 _Thirty-nine steps from here to the bathroom_. He told himself. _Thirty-seven steps and then_ …

He breathed in. Breathed out.

Told himself he could do it. That the air was just air and not concrete.

The craving coiled in, like a snake. The crawling, niggling, scrabbling calmed itself for a moment, as though in anticipation.

 _Twenty-two steps_.

-

Waking up on the ground. He didn’t know where he was or how long he had been there. The words hurt and pain didn’t even apply.

He was the knife. Or the knife was him. All of that coldness and sharpness was him. And wrapped outside of it, a gauzy cotton of white noise.  That was him. All of it at once.

And all of that pushed him out until he wasn’t himself anymore. He was somewhere else, somewhere just above it all. A bystanding witness to his own agony.

Out of body experience, other people had always called it. And he had always scoffed, convinced there was no way you could ever be outside of yourself.

He had since learned that there were many ways you could be outside of yourself.

He threw up. On the floor. On himself.  Acidic bile coaxed from him by his abdominal muscles shuddering and contorting.

-

 

There were other key moments too. Those moments were bathed in gold. Bathed in the sun. But they had forgotten that they could be a part of him. And he had forgotten the person that was a part of them.

In unguarded, unprepared moments they would flash and streak through his mind. Bright in their shiny, golden wrappers. Burning if he tried to hold them for too long.

_Lips curled in a bright burst of laughter._

_The glint of twin metal bands, winking up from entwined fingers._

_Early morning light dancing across bare legs and stripped sheets._

_An internal, radiating warmth. Despite the freezing temperatures and melting snow seeping through the knee of his pants._

Memories of memories.

He wanted the moments to be longer, wanted the glow they brought with them to stay. He wanted to get back to them, get back to the person he had been in those moments. The person that he should have been. Otherwise would have been.

But the heat was never quite enough to chase the coldness away.

The itching coldness was always there, just waiting to take over. No matter how much he tried to shut it away. The scrabbling, scratching that started in his chest and took over him. That unrelenting need that screamed through his mind until he couldn’t think, couldn’t hear anything else.

He didn’t the deserve the warmth. He hadn’t been strong enough to stop, had been foolish enough to think that he didn’t need to. He had denied every expression of concern and offer for help.

He had given up everything. Given up that life and that him for this.  Until all he had left were those key moments, played on a loop in his head.

No escape. No way out.

A self-perpetuating cycle.  

He had been the one to sacrifice the sunshine.

 


End file.
